Construction Soon Underway
- April 2009
NHS Board Chair Betty-Lou Souter and Minister of Transportation & St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley look over the model of the new health-care complex at the Mar. 31 media conference.
Niagara Health System and Infrastructure Ontario officials were elated to announce March 31 that financial arrangements have been finalized for the construction of the new health-care complex in St. Catharines. With financing now in place, plans to start construction remain on schedule for Spring 2009.
The official groundbreaking will take place on April 28. Construction will be completed in 2012, and the building will open to patients in 2013. Within the next few weeks, a construction crew will begin site preparation work, including building a fence around the site and temporary access roads.
"This new facility will provide our health-care team with an up-to-date facility to deliver the best possible patient care," says NHS President and CEO Debbie Sevenpifer. "Also exciting is the opportunity we have to apply lessons learned from the planning for the new facility to programs and sites across the NHS, enhancing care for patients and their families, and improving working conditions for physicians, staff and volunteers."
Along with the many benefits to patients and health-care providers, the new health-care complex will be a major catalyst for the Niagara economy and local job creation in these difficult economic times. At the peak of construction activity, about 1,000 workers are expected on the site daily.
"Niagara ranks second in the province when it comes to its level of unemployment and quite frankly this project couldn't have come at a better time," NHS Board Chair Betty-Lou Souter told guests at a news conference March 31. "This new facility will provide a sizeable injection into our economy by supporting and creating approximately 5,400 construction and other jobs, many of which will be found right here at home in Niagara."
The new complex is the single largest investment in healthcare in Niagara ever made. It will be located at First Street and Fourth Avenue in west St. Catharines, close to Highway 406 and the QEW. A wide range of programs and services will be located here. The new facility will replace the aging St. Catharines General Site and Ontario Street Site (formerly Hotel Dieu Hospital) and will provide new regional services never before available in Niagara, including treatments for cancer, heart disease and longer-term mental health disease.
"For all residents of Niagara, our new hospital's Walker Family Cancer Centre will provide comprehensive cancer treatment - including radiation therapy - for the thousands of cancer patients and their devoted families who make the journey far beyond the Niagara Region for life-saving radiation treatment," Ontario Minister of Transportation and St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley told assembled media and guests. "This new, state-of-the-art complex will undoubtedly attract a new generation of doctors, nurses and health-care professionals looking to locate and practice in a health-care environment where they have the tools, technology, facilities and colleagues to provide the very best services and procedures available to help heal, cure and support their patients and their patients’ families."
The 970,000 sq. ft. facility will have up to 375 beds and fully 80% of those beds will be in single patient rooms. This is a first for Ontario and now considered the international gold standard in hospital care, since private rooms reduce the spread of infection between patients.
It has been designed to achieve LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings. Features include green design, green construction, and green operations. LEED recognizes performance in five key areas of human and environmental health sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. Buildings designed to be LEED certified create a healthier work and living environment, contributing to higher productivity and improved employee health and comfort. Where possible, local materials will be used to construct the new health-care complex.
Plenary Health Niagara, which has signed a fixed-price contract with NHS to design, build, finance and maintain the facility, will receive annual payments from NHS over a 30-year period. These payments cover construction, building maintenance, repair and renewal and project financing; payments are performance-based and much like a fixed-rate mortgage with maintenance and repair expenses included. The total contract cost of the new NHS health-care complex project after 30 years is approximately $1.42 billion. In today’s dollars, this is equivalent to approximately $759 million.
The components of the contract with Plenary Health Niagara include:
- Complete design plans for the new health-care complex;
- Building costs – the bricks and mortar;
- Project financing costs for 30 years;
- A 30-year maintenance agreement (includes such items as roofing, windows, floors, elevators, heating and cooling systems);
- Repair and renewal of the hospital.
In addition to the contract costs, the NHS pays for other non-capital and fixed costs such as:
- Replacement furniture, equipment and information technology
- 100% covered by local share
- Permits, architectural and engineering fees, transaction fees and project management fees
- Cost shared with Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
Including these other costs, the total cost of the Niagara Health System project is approximately $1.56 billion.
Based on this project cost, there will be no increase in the local share, from previous estimates, to pay for the hospital. The local share of $116.9 million for Niagara is being supported by:
- Fundraising - $25 million (of the $40 million It’s Our Time Campaign;
- Retail/commercial opportunities and other funding sources -$27.1 million;
- Regional/Municipal tax levies - $60 million;
- Other grants/funding sources - $4.8 million.
The announcement of financial close is an important step in the path to building this long-awaited facility. "Clearly there is tremendous reason for all of Niagara to celebrate and I am looking forward to the groundbreaking and community celebration that will take place April 28," Betty-Lou said.
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